Proposal to green light Japan route

CAIRNS business leaders are confident an interim decision to reject new Japan flights arriving in the Far North by the competition regulator can be reversed if metropolitan destinations can be pulled from the proposal.

Earlier this year Japan Airlines joined Qantas to propose a new triweekly service between Cairns and Narita airports aimed at attracting top shelf passengers reluctant to fly with budget carrier Jetstar.

However the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is proposing to block the new route, using an Airbus A330, based on the joint business agreement being in breach of competition laws.

A modified submission added to the Cairns route proposal was a pitch for JAL-Qantas flights on the Tokyo-Melbourne and Tokyo-Sydney routes.

“Granting this authorisation would seem to eliminate any prospect of Qantas and Japan Airlines competing for passengers travelling between Australia and Japan, as they did before the COVID-19 pandemic,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said. Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said all new routes had been put in jeopardy by the airlines’ “over reaching”.

“They just need to separate them,” he said. “Let’s be a little bit parochial and put the focus on the Cairns-Tokyo route. I think there is a little bit of an over reach but it’s only a draft and there is an opportunity to put in a submission to separate the two.”

Tropical North Queensland chief Mark Olsen said he was working with Qantas to shift the proposal’s scope.

“We received a letter from the ACCC which said the submission could be amended and that’s the pathway we are working through,” he said.

There was no mention of Qantas joining JAL to offer Sydney and Melbourne routes in Qantas Group executive Andrew Parker’s letter to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in March.

“They expanded it to other destinations and I want them to cut it back specifically for Cairns,” Mr Entsch said.

“Cairns is a much stronger case in regard to an economic (benefits) and there is no (breach of) competition laws. “